


Tell Me

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Nightmares, Richonne doesn't exist, Rutting, crying during orgasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 10:12:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10488501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: Daryl realizes that he can’t keep his feelings a secret anymore. It’s time to tell Rick.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by my pal, Stylepoints!
> 
> (Note-this is NOT a death fic. Don't be worried during the first few paragraphs!)

_It all happened so damn fast, I didn’t know which way was up. We were by a lake, maybe an ocean, and Rick was on the ground bleeding from the neck. The walkers were now twice dead and decomposing for good all around us but I barely remembered raising my weapon to fight them. All I saw were the teeth marks on Rick’s neck and all I could hear was the sound of my own scream._

_“Rick,” I whispered. The daylight was quickly dimming and my eyesight was blurred from tears but I could hear him still breathing raspy breaths. I rested my hand on his chest to feel the comfort of its rise and fall. This couldn’t be real. Not Rick Grimes. Not now. “Rick,” I said again._

_“You’re gonna have to put me down,” Rick said, gasping for each word._

_“No, we can get you back to Hershel. He can fix this, Rick,” I insisted as I tried to help him up. He was dead weight in my arms. I couldn’t move him an inch._

_“Daryl, Hershel’s dead. You know that,” Rick groaned. “Everyone’s dead. I killed everyone.”_

_I rubbed at my stinging eyes, an emptiness inside me that felt like a black hole. “It ain’t on you, Rick. You didn’t kill nobody.” But as I said it, I flashed through memories, Rick biting out Joe’s jugular, gutting the man that was with him from belly button to sternum, then the men at Terminus when we fled, butchering Gareth afterwards, stabbing saviors in their sleep._

_“You need to put me down,” he pleaded, blood now trickling down that plump bottom lip of his._

_I felt the damp grass seep through the knees of my jeans as I knelt beside him and the lake turned into the prison. We were outside the gates and everyone was watching us, fingers gripping the fence. Hershel, Beth, Glenn, Abraham, Denise, Merle, Andrea, Dale, Shane, Tyreese, Bob, Lori._

_“Hershel, help me!” I yelled. “Somebody help! He’s been bit. What can we do?”_

_“Can’t do nothin’,” Negan said from behind me. “He’s fucked. And so are you.” He raised Lucille over me but before the bat could come down I was in a field with Rick beside me, still gasping his last breaths. Just the two of us._

_I looked at him and saw that love in his eyes, that affection he gives me that I ain't never got before from nobody. “Rick, I love you. I’m _in_ love with you. I can’t lose you. I… I can’t…”_

_“Tell me again,” Rick whispered, his eyes starry and distant and a faint smile on his lips. “I want to hear it while I’m dying.”_

_“I love you,” I sobbed. “I love you, I always have. Since the prison, since the farm, since Atlanta. “Rick, please. Please don’t leave me!” I shouted, hearing my echos in the empty field._

_“Tell me,” he whispered again, then the color left his eyes and the rise and fall of his chest ceased. “Nooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed. “Nooooooooo!!!!”_

_I rested my head on his chest and sobbed. When I heard the sound of groaning walkers I finally looked up and all the ones I’d killed had risen yet again. I was surrounded and I had no way out. Hell, I didn't want to get out, not without Rick. I looked down at his body and I softly kissed his lips, tasting the metallic tinge of blood as I felt the first tugs of hungry walker hands pulling at my hair and my flannel. And I watched as Rick sat up, eyes dead and grabbing for me. I held out my wrist for him and watched as he bit into it._

I bolted awake covered in sweat, the emptiness that a close death brings still filling me. I climbed out of bed and paced to straighten myself out. I was in Barrington House. Rick was in the room next door, alive. We were going to Oceanside in the morning. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. I knew it now that I was awake, aware and clear-headed but I needed to see him. I just needed my eyes on him. I slipped out the door of my room and let myself into Rick’s without knocking. I didn’t want to wake him if he was asleep. 

Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see he was sitting up in his bed. “Heard you screaming,” he said. “Was gonna come check on you.”

“‘M fine,” I muttered.

“Another nightmare?”

I nodded and he patted on the bed, signaling for me to come sit with him. I wanted his comfort so goddamn bad I didn’t even spare a second to question whether or not I should accept his invitation. Most likely he’d give me a Rick Grimes patented speech and send me back off to bed like a child. But he was offering comfort and I needed it. I sat on the bed without looking at him, then laid down and rested my head in his lap. He ran his fingers through my hair like I seen him do with Carl before, a way to calm and comfort. 

“Want to tell me?” he said and shades of my dream came barreling back to me. I felt stinging tears again at the mere thought of my family, my friend, my Rick fucking Grimes dying on me. Especially dying without knowing how much he meant to me.

“You died,” I whispered. “Walkers.”

“Not dead. Right here, it’s okay,” he said, now moving his hands from my hair to my back and rubbing slow circles.

“It’s not okay. Not even in a dream because… because you’re… you’re everything.” I sat up and scooted back so that we were both leaning against the wall, shoulders touching like the old days when we’d be out on watch together. “Ain’t never had no one as good to me as you. Ain’t never cared about no one like this. Didn’t never need to worry about death because I didn’t have anyone to lose. Now I worry. Cause I got someone I can’t live without. Someone I want to keep on living for.”

“You’re eloquent at three a.m., Daryl Dixon,’” he said and I couldn’t tell if it was flirty or me just wishin’.

Didn’t matter either way though. Wasn’t gonna stop havin’ that same fuckin’ nightmare until I told him. “I love you,” I said, my eyes focused on the door across the room instead of on him. I didn’t want to see the flinch of his reaction, the look in his eyes when he knew he’d have to explain to me that he loved me too, but as a brother.

“Love you, too,” he said casually, obviously not hearing what I really meant. 

“No. I’m _in_ love with you, Rick. Couldn’t figure out what it was for the longest time. Didn’t know dick about love growin’ up and never had no one before to understand it. But I seen Maggie and Glenn. Eric and Aaron. I seen Tara and Denise. And I know now.” There was a moment of silence that felt like an eternity.

Rick put a hand on my leg and squeezed. “Breathe, Daryl,” he whispered and suddenly I realized that I hadn’t been. “I’m glad you told me.”

“Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable but I had to get it off my chest,” I said, still not looking over to him. And it did feel like a weight was lifted, but a new feeling was moving in, heartbreak. Another emotion I’d never experienced. Another kind of emptiness not that much different than the feeling a death brings.

Then I felt his hand on my cheek and noticed that he’d turned to me and was ducking his head to catch my eyes. “I’m in love with you, too. Just wanted to wait until you got there with me,” he said.

“What-” I couldn’t finish my sentence because Rick, Rick fucking Grimes, my friend, my soulmate, the object of years of my unrequited pining, had pressed his lips to mine. It was gentle like wind dancing against a wheatfield. I parted my lips to protest. There’s no way Rick could love me back. I wasn’t even prepared for such a contingency. But my parting lips only encouraged Rick more and he cradled me down into the bed with him, his body tight to mine, kissing more passionately, hands roaming, tongue and gentle nips of teeth. 

“You okay? Am I moving too fast?” he whispered.

“Just… just ain’t never done much of this,” I said, my voice embarrassingly shakey.

Rick rolled off me and pulled me close so that my head rested on his chest. “I’m just glad to have your love, Daryl. I can wait forever. I was willing to wait forever for you. There’s no rush.”

I flashed back to my nightmare, Rick’s dead eyes, the blood trickling down his lip. “That’s not true,” I said, sleep creeping into my voice. “Life is so short, Rick.” But I drifted off to sleep before I could tell him that I wanted to learn how to be more for him, how to give him everything I had.

This time I slept peaceful and dreamless, tucked up beside Rick’s warmth, his hand rubbing at my mess of hair and my head rising and falling against his chest as he breathed. When I woke, dawn was slipping through the cracks in the window and I could hear the faint sound of Maggie bossing someone around outside.

“She’s gonna make a great leader here.” Rick chuckled.

I sat up and looked down at Rick, just in his boxers and a T-shirt like I was, curls flattened on one side and wildly untamed on the other. “She forgave me,” I said, having a normal conversation like we hadn’t just confessed our love to one another only hours before.

“For what?”

I frowned at him. He should know for what, he was there. “For Glenn,” I answered, as if it should have been clear to any damn body.

Rick sat up and ran his fingers through my hair, pushing it out of my face and cupping my cheek. “Nothing to forgive, Daryl. That wasn’t on you and Maggie knows it.”

I shrugged. Didn’t matter what anyone else thought, it wasn’t going to stop how I felt inside. “I’m gonna carry that one, though,” I whispered as I leaned my head into his touch. “And Beth.”

“I still carry Shane. And Sophia,” he answered, not trying to pep talk me when he understood all too well what it was like to carry guilt like an extra ten pounds that you just couldn’t seem to drop.

“That was a while ago. Does it get any easier?” I asked.

“No.” He was brutally honest and I appreciated that. I already knew anyway that it wouldn’t ever get better.

“We gotta get up and get ready for the trek to Oceanside,” I said, as I laid back down beside him. I knew we had to get moving but I didn’t want lose this moment. 

He wrapped me in his arms. “It’s early, we got a little time.” His body was so warm against mine, his forehead touching my forehead all the way down to the tangle of our feet. 

“Why do you love me back?” I asked. “Or did I dream that?”

He chuckled again and nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck, kissing along my shoulder. “I ain’t like Lori or Jessie. Ain’t nothin’ like ‘em,” I explained.

“Love doesn’t come from being like someone else. It evolves. From friendship and trust, affection. Chemistry.”

“But I’m filthy nearly all the time. Don’t shower near enough now that we got a place to do it. I’m not soft lines and smooth skin. I’m rough and inexperienced and broken in a dozen different ways.”

He stopped my talking by kissing me, soft full lips on mine, plucking kisses gently like I was somethin’ fragile instead of a dirty redneck. I liked the way my heart felt when he gave me physical attention. It throbbed harder and I felt a lightness that I may have never known in my life, a freedom from care and worry. 

“I want to learn how to be everything for you, Rick,” I whispered. “I wanna make you as happy as you make me.” 

“You do,” he said, his lips now kissing at the corner of my eye, one hand cupping my ass and the other with fingers spread into my hair. I felt an innate desire to rock my body against his and I allowed myself to do it as I nuzzled his beard.

“You feel good, Rick. Always loved having you close.”

“I can be as close as you want me, love,” he whispered and my stomach did something it ain’t never done before. It was like a rise and fall of an ocean wave or the sudden drop from a roller coaster. My hips took over after my brain seemed to completely fizzle out and I writhed against him, my dick hard and pressing into his thigh as I moved. Sounds fell from my lips that I know I ain’t never made before. Ain’t no total prude. I’ve jacked myself off plenty of times, but the feel of Rick’s warmth against my body, his hands on me, his whispers against my ear telling me I feel so good, urging me to keep moving, I ain’t never felt this. It was like a live wire inside me was flirtin’ with a pool of water, ready to spark.

“I can’t believe I get to have you in my arms like this, Daryl,” he whispered and I suddenly realized that I was using his body to give mine friction and selfishly wasn’t returnin’ nothin’. I slid my hand over the budge in his boxers and he groaned and whimpered at my touch. I was nervous and didn’t want to do nothing wrong but I kept my hand there and let him rut up against it, both of our bodies chasing one another for that final spark. We were uncoordinated and desperate, moans and whimpers coming from one or both of us, I couldn’t really tell.

Anyone who knows me, knows I don’t talk a lot, but suddenly a steady stream of words fell from my tongue as my body bucked against his. “Rick, Jesus fucking Christ. I think I’ve been waiting for you forever. You're all that matters in this world, you’re everything, you’re everything. Please, please don’t ever leave me. Don’t die on me,” I sobbed.

“You have me, Daryl. I’m yours. I’m yours,” he groaned back as he put a hand over mine and ground his cock harder into my open palm. And suddenly I was spilling with relief, flooded with affection and desire, exploding with raw animalistic need. I came in my underwear against Rick’s strong thigh and I felt the wetness of Rick’s release against my palm. I didn’t ever want to move. I wanted to lay there against him spent and sticky for eternity. I wanted more. I wanted everything. War and walkers were around every corner. I needed him to survive. I flashed back to a blurry memory of a fading dream. “Tell me,” he’d said. And I have. But now was the hard part. Surviving through the war so that I could tell him again and again and again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone is excited for the Season Finale on Sunday!


End file.
